The present disclosure relates in general to packages for lightweight bulk products such as snack crackers, chips, crisps, and the like. The disclosure relates more particularly to such packages in the form of a gusseted flat-bottomed bag configured to sit upright on a store shelf.
Effective displaying of bags of products such as potato chips, crackers, crisps, and the like, on a store shelf requires that the bags be maintained in an upright configuration so that the major surface of the front of each bag is presented for viewing by customers. Gusseted flat-bottomed bags are well-suited to such manner of display. Paper flat-bottomed bags tend to present no difficulty in stably standing on a shelf. When gusseted flat-bottomed bags are constructed of a polymer film-based material, however, the “memory” of the polymer film material tends to resist the requisite folding of the material that is needed in order for the bottom of the bag to flatten out and form a stable base for the upright bag. This is particularly true when polymer film materials of relatively high stiffness (e.g., laminates of multiple layers of polymer film) are employed.